Really something of a guess. Just using NICS checks over the last 18 months might indicate a short term trend but they admit that that doesn't give accurate information. I can guarantee that Nebraska is higher than 40th in gun ownership per capita.

The information they are using is so incomplete as to render the whole article almost useless. Interesting but ultimately little actual value. Although I'm sure the left can somehow spin it their way.

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My State has the Smallest Population. We mostly do Private Sale around here, yet I prefer to buy from a Dealer. I have baught used, Private Sale, but 90% of my Purchases are made at a Dealer.
That said, these figures only reflect the amount of NICS Checks performed. That figure has little to do with how Armed we are. A friend 2 Towns over owns a Collection of over 300 Firearms. He has not however purchased one from a Dealer in over 15 Years, before NICS was even an option. He's an older Gentleman and simply feels he has every Firearm he could have ever wanted, so why buy more. His favorites are his Anschutz .22 Rifles.

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the ATFE said that their best guess is thathere are 80 millions gun owners in the USA Yet we only have 4 million in the NRA sad if it wasnt for the NRA we would have lost most of our gun rights when kennedy got killed.

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Thank you for posting this information, but I should like to point out that, like most gun "data," it is almost wholly meaningless. Why? Because there is no uniform standard of comparison.

For example:

1) Florida only had 7000-something NICS checks per 100,000. This may seem low, but do bear in mind that Florida is where old people go to live out their sunset years. The older someone is, the more likely it may be that they've accumulated all the guns they'll ever want. To put it bluntly, people in Florida don't buy guns, they bring them from wherever they used to live.

2) People can buy guns across state lines. Where are the NICS checks reported? If it is in the state of purchase, then a person from, say, MA who hops the border into NH would skew both states' statistics.

3) Some states allow FTF and others do not. If the secondary market is reported in one state and not in another, then the data would be so skewed (several times over, in fact) as to be completely meaningless.

4) Multiple purchases only require one NICS check. So, a state where the population is more actively stockpiling arms may present fewer NICS checks than one that is buying fewer.

5) Monitoring 18 months of data is meaningless for long-term ownership info. Maybe a state has more NICS checks because of panic purchases, while other states had populations that were (and/or still are) far better armed.

6) There is NO data available for criminals, who, by definition, are neither inclined to record their purchases, nor able to buy within the system.

EDIT: 7) The reason KY is so high is because they passed a law where they run every permit holder through the system EVERY MONTH. So...every person in KY with a permit gets 12 NICS checks a year, even if they don't buy a gun.

While there are many advantages to private ownership of arms, unreliable guesswork "data" like these are a dangerous possibility that may allow gun owners to be mischaracterized by any apparent glitch in the numbers.

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I am not sure that looking at how many FFL transactions there are in a year; will equal how many firearms people own.

It seems that me that nearly everyone around here has a closet full of firearms. But they may not have bought any this year, or in the most recent decade.

And then there are people like me. I have bought over a dozen guns in the last 18 months through dealers, but had never bought one through a dealer prior. Buying patterns like that certainly skew the data.

Really something of a guess. Just using NICS checks over the last 18 months might indicate a short term trend but they admit that that doesn't give accurate information. I can guarantee that Nebraska is higher than 40th in gun ownership per capita.

The information they are using is so incomplete as to render the whole article almost useless. Interesting but ultimately little actual value. Although I'm sure the left can somehow spin it their way.

It is really more a measure of how uninformed/fearful a state's residents are. CT was #19, and we are a deep blue-green state. I think it is more a measure of fear and ignorance. I have bought guns from people here in CT in FTF transactions, and they were so afraid that they were doing something illegal that I now carry all of the General Statutes pertaining to gun laws, along with sever gun organizations' synopses, with me to every FTF purchase, just to assure people that they're not breaking the law by cutting out the middleman. I have even had people refuse to sell their rifle to me FTF because I don't have a pistol permit. If I don't need one to buy a pistol FTF, I certainly don't need one for a rifle. But try explaining that to someone who thinks they're facing jail time for selling their gun.

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